Workshop 7

Implementing high quality digital imaging in your organization

Is your organization professionalizing it's digital imaging workflow? Are you trying to meet the image needs of various internal and external user groups? Are you trying to set up a digitization programme to deliver high quality, consistent results on time for various purposes, from banners to i-phone applications? Do you need an easily accessible high quality image archive to help achieve your organization's strategic goals? Do you want accurate reproductions, beautiful books, your collections available online? Are you developing innovative applications that use high quality images? Do you realize that a having a high quality digital collection is a key success factor for the 21^st century heritage institution? Do you know where to get the perfect reproduction you need for your purpose, or do you still keep a box of ectachromes in an old archiving cabinet? Do you want to move from ad hoc projects to a structural solution for digital imaging? Do you want to make your digital imaging workflow more efficient?

Whether you are a decision maker, involved in digitization projects, working with images as a photographer or image technician, or using images for your publications or applications, if your answer to any of these questions is 'yes' we think you may find this workshop both useful and enjoyable!

The workshop focuses on a standards based approach to digital imaging that will help to achieve high quality and consistency in all aspects of the digital imaging workflow, and it discusses the strategic and organizational issues you need to address when developing digital imaging as a core service in your institution.

Morning session: learn from and share with the experts

In the morning session we'll look at the theorical concepts, but also at the practical problems you may encounter when you try to set up a standards based workflow in 'the real world'. Two managers from two of the Netherlands’ top museums, and one consultant with a lot of experience advising museums worldwide in this area will share their experiences with you to show how standards can be implemented in large and small museums, taking into account the range en specific nature of each museum's collections, as well as the context in which you operate: the museum's mission, vision, strategic goals, it's organizational structure, it's legacy, it's priorities, and last but definitely not least: it's people.

Afternoon session: do it yourself!

The afternoon is going to be an instructive, illuminating and fun game! In small groups you will work on a case and try to solve a specific problem, taking into account the interests of the various stakeholders, dependencies, deadlines, budget restrictions, etc. At the end of this session all groups will be asked to present their solutions and we'll compare and discuss them. The cases are designed to make you experience some real problems that you may be confronted with in any heritage institution when implementing a professional standards based digital imaging workflow.

The workshop is organized and presented by:

Cécile van der Harten, Head of the Image Department at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Marianne Peereboom, Digitization Manager / Project Manager at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Scott Geffert, Digital Imaging Consultant and President at Center for Digital Imaging, Inc., New York, USA.

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Cecile van der Harten is Head of the Image Department of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam since 2006. With the help of Centre for Digital Imaging Inc. (New York) the Rijksmuseum has implemented a high quality standards-based workflow for digital imaging and a Digital Asset Management system.
As head of the Image Department Cecile supervises 5 photo studio’s and the photo archive of the Rijksmuseum, that supplies images to clients inside and outside the Rijksmuseum. The image Department is responsible for the systematic digitization of the 1 million objects in the Rijksmuseum collection.
Cecile van der Harten and her team were also responsible for the implementation of a centralized workflow in sharepoint for the museum, to order and search images in the DAM-system.
Cecile van der Harten is an art historian, who worked in journalism before she entered the Rijksmuseum. She worked at the picture desk of the ANP, the Dutch National Press agency. There she was involved in the development of a DAM-system for press photography in 1995. From 1996 on she worked at the picture desk of TROUW, one of Netherland’s national newspapers. She was editor in chief and also involved in improvement in quality of printing and development of a central DAM-system for daily press photography through satellite.
www.rijksmuseum.nl

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Marianne Peereboom is digitization manager and project manager at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam. With the help of Scott Geffert from the Centre for Digital Imaging Inc. (New York) the museum has implemented a tight high quality standards-based workflow for digital imaging and set up a new in-house photo studio. As manager of the photo studio Marianne supervises the systematic digitization of the collections of both the Van Gogh Museum and the Mesdag Museum in The Hague (part of the Van Gogh Museum and currently closed for renovation). She is also project manager for the selection and implementation of a new Collection Information System and a Digital Asset Management System.
Marianne Peereboom has a degree in Dutch language and literature. Before her entrance in the museum world, she worked in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the National Library of the Netherlands in The Hague, where she developed her project management skills and was involved in developing metadata standards to enable better information exchange on the web and in digitization of cultural heritage collections to enable broad access for extended user groups.
www.vangoghmuseum.nl

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Scott Geffert is president for Center for Digital Imaging Inc. A New York based consulting firm specializing in digital imaging workflow for cultural heritage institutions. Over the past 14 years Center for Digital Imaging (www.cdiny.com) has worked with museums worldwide helping establish best practices and solving complex workflow challenges. Recent work in the Netherlands with the Rijkmmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum has resulted in innovative standards-based capture methods and new levels of quality and productivity.
Scott, a recognized leader in the electronic imaging field was formally educated in photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and has been involved with computers since 1984. His working knowledge of a wide range of imaging applications has been acquired via employment experiences, including seven years of experience in a professional photographic lab, three years with a leading international lighting manufacturer, one year at a major national computer reseller, freelance photography, freelance computer consulting, and advertising design. In 1989 Scott created the first digital photography showroom in the Untied States in 1989 as a division of Ken Hansen Photographic. Ken Hansen Imaging was widely recognized as the leader in this very new market by the major manufacturers of imaging equipment and the international photographic press.This wide variety of employment experiences has given Scott a unique end-user related perspective of the technology field.
The skills that Scott brings to the table are the ability to communicate the virtues of high technology systems and applications to people regardless of their own particular field of interest and experience. Scott has a knack for reducing an elusive and daunting amount of technical information to simple plain terms that anyone can understand, thus he has proven to be effective communicating solutions that solve problems.